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Opera Boosts Coast Browser for iOS, Compresses Video Downloads

Opera-icon-high-resOpera has just solved one of the more annoying issues with mobile browsing: stalled video downloads.

They’ve rolled out an update for the Coast app for iPad and iPhone which adds new video compression as well as a couple new gestures and sharing options.

Opera is no longer the darling of mobile browsing, but it hasn’t given up on the market. It continues to draw attention, first by launching a radically redesigned web browser, Coast, and then by adapting its bandwidth compression tech so users can eke out more data on their limited mobile bandwidth.

And now Opera is applying that compression tech to videos, saving users not just from overage charges but also from the perilous buffering wheel. The update builds on Opera’s Rocket Optimizer engine to smooth out video playback by compressing the video stream. Users will have to enable the feature, which is found in the settings menu under Opera Turbo.

Other improvements include a new swipe down gesture in the news feed to  return to searching and a swipe back gesture for secure new sites to go back without refreshing the previous page. Opera Coast also gained 4 new sharing options in the latest update. Users can new share pages directly to Pocket, Evernote, Kik and Pinterest.

You can find the app in iTunes.

Opera via PhoneScoop

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Comments


sdjkbn March 18, 2015 um 12:18 pm

I wonder, how that video compression is supposed to work. Codecs for web video should already be pretty optimized by design, such that you would not expect much to gain without quality loss. However, if image quality is the least issue one cares about, there’s probably still potential for further decrease from the lowest possible option available from the streaming site itself. So it might be a good thing for some people.

Nate Hoffelder March 18, 2015 um 1:02 pm

I don’t know. Maybe they’re counting on small screens to keep people from noticing the degradation?


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